Barbara Gayle Staff ReporterFITZROY FISHER, senior internal auditor, employed to the National Water Commission (NWC), has lost his appeal against his conviction and two-year-prison sentence for defrauding the NWC.
The prosecution said at the trial that the fraudulent scheme involved the creation of fictitious job orders and corresponding cheques were subsequently encashed.
Mr. Fisher and another man were charged jointly with committing the offences between August 1994 and November 1995. Mr. Fisher was convicted of the charges and sentenced to two years' imprisonment while his co-conspirator was freed.
After the fraud involving millions of dollars was discovered, the NWC retained the services of Security Administrative Services to investigate the matter. Evidence was given at the trial that Fisher admitted to one Mr. Lawrence, an internal auditor at the NWC who was assigned to Security Administrative Services, that he embarrassed his family, friends and the department. When it was suggested to Fisher to give back the money, he said another fellow with whom he shared the money had purchased two taxis and a Suzuki Swift car.
Ian Ramsay, Q.C. who represented Fisher, argued on appeal "that the witness Lawrence, who testified as to admissions made to him by the appellant, was a person in a position of authority and hence such alleged admissions were not admissible unless affirmatively shown to be free and voluntary or taken after a caution".
The Court of Appeal, comprising the Hon. Ian Forte, president of the Court of Appeal, Mr. Justice Bingham and Mr. Justice Howard Cooke (acting), said there was no merit in the complaint that the confession was not admissible. The court said "perhaps it needs to be restated that a confession to a person in authority does not by that fact alone make such a confession inadmissible".
The court said the confession became inadmissible when it was made in circumstances which offended the principles enunciated in the dictum of Lord Summer in the Ibrahahim case that "it has long been established as a positive rule of English Criminal Law, that no statement by an accused is admissible in evidence against him unless it is shown by the prosecution to have been a voluntary statement, in the sense that it has not been obtained from him either by fear of prejudice or hope of advantage exercised or held out by a person in authority".
